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UW-L alumna to be honored

Posted 4:50 p.m. Thursday, April 21, 2011

La Crosse resident and UW-La Crosse graduate Darryle Clott will join Legendary Entertainer Jerry Lewis and others in receiving Ellis Island Medals of Honor.

[caption id="attachment_30" align="alignleft" width="200" caption="Darryle Clott"]Photo of Darryle Clott[/caption]NEW YORK, NY – La Crosse resident and UW-La Crosse graduate Darryle Clott will join Legendary Entertainer Jerry Lewis and others in receiving Ellis Island Medals of Honor on Saturday, May 7. The National Ethnic Coalition awards pay tribute to American citizens of diverse ethnic origins whose influence and achievements inspire and touch others. Clott, who earned a bachelor’s in 1966 and a master’s in 1971 from UW-La Crosse, retired from La Crescent, Minn. High School in 2004 where she taught a comprehensive unit on the Holocaust for several years in her English classes. The classes inspired her to attend the Teachers’ Summer Institute on Holocaust and Jewish Studies and Jewish Resistance in Poland and Israel in 2001. As her interest in the Holocaust grew, Clott became a member of the American Friends of the Jewish Fighters Museum Consortium of Holocaust Educators and is the founder of the Midwest Holocaust Education Consortium. She is a Teacher Fellow at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Clott teaches history of the Holocaust at Viterbo University and leads Holocaust educator workshops. She is instrumental in bringing Holocaust survivors to La Crosse, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel, and Presidential Medal of Honor winner Gerda Weissmann Klein, along with Rwandan genocide survivor Immaculee Ilibagiza, humanitarian Greg Mortenson, and bestselling author Mitch Albom. Since 1986, NECO has honored the nation's diverse past by sponsoring the Ellis Island Medals of Honor which tribute to the ancestry groups that comprise America’s unique cultural mosaic. The medals are presented on Ellis Island in a ceremony honoring Americans for their outstanding contributions to their communities, nation and world. Past recipients include six U.S presidents, Nobel Prize winners, athletes, leaders of industry, artists and others whose work has made a lasting impact on humanity. For further information about NECO and the Ellis Island Medals of Honor see: www.neco.org.

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